Restaurant-turned-tech company Eatsa has unveiled a new innovative option for meal-pickup stations.
The Spotlight Pickup System is slightly less complicated than the company’s revolutionary Cubby Pickup System. Instead of food stored behind a door in a cubby, Spotlight is a modular open-shelf system. It uses the same technology as the Cubby system. Each shelf contains “spots” equipped with sensors that provide customized digital messaging.
Each spot can send and receive information through Eatsa’s cloud services. It allows the restaurant to assign a customer’s name and provide a status update on each order.
The first restaurants adopting the new pick-up system include Mac’d in San Francisco; Evergreens in Seattle; and Wow Bao in Chicago. Evergreens and Wow Bao plan to deploy the shelf system by February.
Mac’d, a three-unit fast-casual, build-your-own macaroni and cheese concept, has been using the Spotlight system at one of its two San Francisco restaurants.
Co-founder Antony Bello said it gives customers “quick and efficient service.”
“When considering Eatsa’s technology, it was critical for us to have the ability to customize it to fit both our space needs in the restaurant and our brand standards for how we communicate with our guests,” Bello said in a statement. “It fits seamlessly into our restaurant design. The added benefit is it’s very fun and engaging for our customers. I’ve seen many smiles as they easily find their order and are able to go about their busy day.”
Tom Small, chief operating officer of Seattle-based Evergreens, said Spotlight will help the restaurant meet the demands of “a big increase in the number of pickup orders” at its restaurants. He said he likes the idea of the system giving customers a status update without having to interact with cashiers.
“We think our customers are going to love this new innovative pickup experience,” he said in a statement.
Eatsa also operates two namesake restaurants in San Francisco.